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Sunday, December 25, 2011

This is possibly the prettiest purple
I’ve got. It’s deep and beautiful, and as with most of my Orlys, the formula is
a dream.

Here it is, two coats, no top coat:

It dried up a little bit matte, and I
must say that even though I usually love glitter, the little silver glitters in
this polish didn’t do anything for me. The polish even dried up a bit gritty
because of them. So even though I’m usually like ‘the more glitter the better’,
it wasn’t like that in this case.

But I moved right on along, because I
had stamping in mind. And this time I wanted to try an all nail design for the
first time. I chose Bundlemonster’s BM20, and Konad’s silver stamping polish,
even though it hasn’t impressed me so far. In fact it does look a little bit
better in the picture than it actually did in real life! :D

Here’s the result:

It wasn’t easy at all, but I’ve learned
that the only thing that makes good is practice, so I’m not giving up!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

“Love Marilyn” is from the Eye Candy 3-D
Glitters Collection from winter 2011, and I knew I had to have it from the
moment I laid eyes on it.

China Glaze themselves call it a 3D
glitter. I am not sure quite what they mean by 3D, but the fact is that it’s
absolutely gorgeous.

Here it is:

I used three coats to reach full
opacity, and it dried very quickly between each coat. It was very lumpy though,
but perhaps that’s what the 3D fuss is all about! :D The picture shows three
coats and two coats of China Glaze’s Fast Forward top coat.

There are two cons:

1) - It chips pretty quickly. This mani only
lasted for a day and a half before it had its first big chip.

2) - The removal. It’s a *real* pain,
even when using the foil method!

It’s still totally worth it though. I
wore it for a Christmas party at work, and it was perfect for that occasion. Red
and silver and glitter, glitter, glitter!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

This is a beautiful turquoise polish with a lovely metallic
finish. The first layer was very difficult to apply. It looked very sheer, but by
being more careful and applying it more thickly, I got quite a good result. The
second coat covered all the unevenness nicely.

Here it is with one layer of Seche Vite top coat:

I wanted to stamp on it, and I wanted to stamp with a
darker blue. Unfortunately I don’t own Konad’s stamping polish in blue, so I
went through my collection to find one. I tried “What’s your name” from Sinful
colours, but that was too runny for this purpose. Next one up was a dark blue
from Color Club, “Trippie Hippie”, but that didn’t work either. Then I tried
“Metallic blue” from Klean Color. I remember someone mentioned on a nail blog
that Klean Colors were good for stamping. I stamped it on my thumb, but it
didn’t show up at all, a complete failure. I was of course seriously
disappointed

So, managing to force a smile, I gave up on the blue colours
and went for Konad’s white stamping colour instead. That turned out to be better
than expected. The top coat has pulled a bit on the design, but it really only
shows on the pictures and not in real life, so I’m okay with that.

And amazingly, when I applied the top coat something
magic happened! The previously virtually invisible blue Klean Color showed up
underneath the white!! I couldn’t have made it look like this on purpose, and I
must admit that I think it looks pretty cool!

This is my first Isadora product, but it’s definitely
not going to be my last. Applying it was a dream, and it covered perfectly in
two coats.

Here it is with one layer of Seche Vite top coat:

As I said, this polish is a dream to work with, the
formula is perfect and the colour is really gorgeous. It fits its name
perfectly – it’s like the colour of a beautiful green beetle: Deep green,
shiny, almost foil-like.

I reckon this polish would be good for stamping too,
which is another plus in my book.

The price is somewhat higher than I’m usually willing
to pay, and the bottles are only 6ml, but this one was on special so I’m just
happy I was there at the right time.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

“Sweet Peacock” is from Orly’s “Birds of a Feather” collection from Autumn
2011. It’s a vibrant electric blue with a foil finish. I used one generous coat
for full opacity. Looking at the pics I might go for two coats next time. Here
it is without topcoat, one coat:

I had plans for the Sweet Peacock though. I wanted to
use it as a base for L. A. Color’s “Jewel Tone”, which looks like a very pretty glitter, in the bottle. I
did however try to apply it on its own first, and could tell that it was going
to be a 10 coater or something like that, so I cleaned it off and decided to
layer it over the Sweet Peacock. And *that* worked very well. The blue glitter
blended in nicely with the base colour, and the pink looked so sweet on top of
it.

Here it is, two coats of “Jewel Tone” and a generous
coat of Seche Vite top coat:

I quite like that. I’ll try the glitter over a pink
and a black as well, but I definitely like it over turquoise.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

“Meep meep meep” is from OPI’s Muppet collection from Autumn
2011. It’s a gorgeous dark fuchsia, which caught my eye instantly. I am sonotan OPI-girl, and it takes a lot for
them to convince me to buy their polishes. I think I have four of them in my
collection at the moment, that’s all.

So anyway – the formula seemed good, and “Meep meep
meep” looked really good already after the first layer. I waited for what
seemed like forever before applying coat number two, and it looked perfect
after that. Here it is, two coats and one coat of Seche Vite top coat:

The biggest drawback about this polish is the interminable
drying time. I just don’t have the patience (or the spare time) to wait for so
long for my nails to dry. And not even my beloved Seche Vite could save me this
time. My manicure lasted for approximately an hour, then I had large dents in
three out of ten nails, so I wiped it all off.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

"Liebster" is a German word which meansdearestorbeloved, but it can also mean favourite.
The idea of the Liebster award is that it is given to bloggers who have
less than 200 followers, all in the spirit of fostering new connections
and to bring attention to these brilliant blogs!The rules are :

Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you

Reveal the five blogs you have chosen and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog

Copy and paste the award onto your blog

Request that people you have sent the award to forward it on to their favourite bloggers

I was going to a Christmas party and
wanted nails with a lot of bling-effect. Twinkle Lights from China Glaze’s “Let
it snow” collection from 2011 is such a polish.

I started with one coat of Bourjois’ ‘Rouge
Escarpin’. It’s a polish I’ve had for quite a while without trying it on. It’s
a gorgeous red crème, and one coat actually did the job very nicely :

After that I applied two coats of
Twinkle Lights. I think the red base might be a mistake, since it was
impossible to get as close to the edges with the glitter as the red, but hey, I
wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t have to start all over again if the China
Glaze turned out to be too sheer.

Here it is, in all its golden glory:

Lots and lots of glitter. Shiny,
sparkly, attention seeking. I love it, even though I’m usually more of a
silvery kind of person.

Monday, December 12, 2011

It’s December and time for Christmassy
colours. I decided to try out this dark green Orly. After the first coat I was a bit
worried, because it was being very difficult to apply evenly. However, the
second coat sorted that out and it looked smooth and nice. Take a look:

It’s rarely that Orly let me down, so I
was happy but not totally surprised that it turned out this nice.

I really want to improve my stamping
skills and the only way to do that is to practice. I picked Konad’s M3 and
Konad’s own white stamping polish. It actually went quite well compared to last
time. The stamps went on nicely and look quite crisp.

I really like this mani, and I also got
quite a lot of compliments for it. :)

Friday, December 9, 2011

Rule Breaker is from Color Club’s Wild at
Heart collection from Autumn of 2009. I only bought it recently so it’s still
available - at least online.

Color Club is one of my favourite brands,
and this polish didn’t let me down. I applied one coat, ONE, and I was
satisfied.

Take a look, one coat, no top coat:

I had stamping in mind for this baby – I
need to practice to get better at this.

I chose a skull from Konad’s M13, and
decided to try and use Color Club’s Lumin-icecent as the stamping polish. I’ve
tried Konad’s silver stamping polish, but to be honest I don’t think it shows
itself very well on the darker polishes.

Here’s the magic that Color Club did:

It’s subtle but I quite like it. And I was
satisfied with my own stamping technique this time. :D

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

I went
to Sweden to shop some Christmas presents recently, and obviously I had
to buy a bit of nail polish too, now that I was there.

I bought two Isadoras and three Viva la Divas. They're both Swedish brands.

From left to right: Black Galaxy, Beetle Green, 121, 72 and 70.

Here
are the three Viva la Divas. The picture is blurry because then it's
easier to see the colours and the glitter. I don't know why they give
them numbers instead of names, I think that's really silly. I prefer
names to numbers. However, nr.121 is a very shimmery deep purple, 72 is a
silver holographic glitter, and 70 is a clear base with turquoise and
green glitter.

Number 121, 72 and 70.

Here's
a close up of the Isadoras. Black galaxy to the left is a black base
with all colours of holographic glitter, and beetle green is exactly
what the name implies, a dark green with a foil finish.

Black Galaxy and Beetle Green

I
also picked up a couple of Maybellines. Here's number 753, a shimmery
light green with a tint of gold, and number 152A, a midnight blue with
shimmer.

MNY: 753 and 152A

The
last one I bought was an OPI. I'm not usually a big fan, but "Meep meep
meep" from the Muppets collection was simply too gorgeous to miss.
She's wine red and packed with shimmer.

OPI: Meep meep meep

That's it for this time. I did visit Make Up Store and eyed their polishes, but my Visa was overheated at that point. :D

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

When I saw this polish I just knew I had
to have it. I am definitely a glitter girl, and this product looks fantastic
with its mix of pink and blue glitters. I was a little nervous that it couldn’t
live up to my expectations though: Would the glitter apply just as beautifully
on the nails as it looked in the bottle.

It took three coats to reach opacity,
and it was very easy to apply. It dried quickly too, although not surprisingly,
it dried up gritty and needed two coats of Seche Vite top coat to smooth out
the surface.

It’s really hard to capture this polish
in photos though – it’s actually a lot nicer to the eyes than it looks here.
The winter darkness doesn’t really help me at all, so I’m planning on making my
own little light box soon in order to snap some better pictures of my
manicures.

Disco Mix definitely lived up to my
expectations, and I got myself a brand new favourite nail polish! :D

Sunday, December 4, 2011

A clear jelly
packed with teal glitter and larger pink and gold hexagons

HOT Makeup is a very cheap brand here, not very
common, but sometimes available in the larger supermarkets. They usually have a
lot of (to me) uninteresting colours, but I fell for this petrel blue (and yes,
it’s called Petrol Blue).. I thought it was a great colour, and if the
formula wasn’t much good, I imagined I might be able to use it for stamping.

I wanted to test it out, so I applied one coat, and it
covered perfectly, and I mean *perfectly*. The appropriate word here is
‘impressed’. The formula is a bit on the thick side, but it was *so* easy to
work with and covered the nail without
streaks or bald spots.

Here is one coat. One!

Had I wanted to stamp on it, I might have added a
second coat, just to smooth out the surface perfectly, but I had other plans
for this baby: Klean Color’s “City never sleeps”.

This glitter is in a very thick jelly, which I imagine
will be on the tricky side to work with after a little while as the polish get
older. But for a fresh bottle of polish it was great. The glitter spread out
evenly without any problems whatsoever.

The only con is that it leaves the surface very bumpy,
so it needed two generous coats of Poshé top coat to even it out nicely.